Finding the right domain name is everything — in a digital world, your domain name is your welcome mat. It needs to be short, easy-to-remember and brand-related.
Does yours? We can help.
Experts suggest that groups choose a logical but unique domain name, specific to their organization.
And with the decreasing use of the prefix www, a readable and brand-specific name is more important than ever.
This is one of the reasons we created the .BIBLE top-level domain, to empower new domain names that end with the .BIBLE extension.
Our top-level domain isn’t just for Bible organizations, it’s for all Bible-inspired groups—more than 1,000 organizations have registered for .BIBLE domain names, like nonprofits, educational groups, mission organizations, Bible-driven ministries, publishers, translators and others. And since updating their domains, these sites have maintained their search engine optimization (SEO).
In fact, research has found that new, top-level domains could have better SEO performance than relevant keywords.
(click the image to download infographic in full-size PDF format)
Decision makers with organizations cannot haphazardly jump at trying something new because there’s a new technology with potential and opportunity. Careful research and consideration has to be made before making a decision that would re-allocate resources to change things up dramatically. Those resources could involve staff time, actual monetary finances, or a change in the current state of reputation and credibility when it comes to the web addresses.
While status quo does keep things as they are, the world is constantly changing around us, especially in a digital age. To implement the right changes strategically and wisely can be the path to significant growth and performance that wouldn’t be possible with minor changes to status quo.
The Biggest Change on the Internet
One of the biggest changes is the internet expansion program, known as new gTLDs (generic top-level domains), that started in 2014. This expanded the internet namespace to over 1,000 new domain extensions far beyond the popularized legacy endings of .com, .net, and .org. Yes, there are hundreds and thousands of domains that have meaningful endings like: .app, .bank, .bible, .blog, .church, .club, .coffee, .events, .live, .media, .network, .news, .photo, .training, .wiki, and many more.
To quantify just how fast these new gTLDs are growing, also known as “not-coms,” the number of not-com websites in the Alexa Top 1 Million (a list of the most popular websites based on traffic) has increased by more than 300% since September 2015, with not-com registrations growing from 7.3 million to 23.9 million.
Here are 3 examples that are helpful to learn from and observe their implementation of this innovation.
Consider how big of a decision this was: the change involved only dropping 2 characters in their domain name, but it affected more than 70,000 in its attendance along with all of the church’s branding, stationery, signage, communications, and more. And yet the church’s leadership made this change as an opportunity to refresh its vision, its logos, and its web address. When our team asked the Life.Church team about how this impacted their church, their response was reassuring: “no negative impact occurred and people continued using their website as usual.”
Find.Bible is the worldwide web directory of Bibles and biblical resources in the 6,000+ languages of the world, cataloging print Bibles, print-on-demand Bibles, digital Bibles, audio Bibles, visual Bibles and Bible resources – in multiple formats. Find.Bible ensures that the world’s Bibles and great biblical resources are easy to find, secure, use and share – in every language. While it is possible to search for Scripture and Bible resources online, the sheer quantity of available content is overwhelming; and, not every Scripture is discoverable on search engines.
When we asked the Find.Bible team why getting a .BIBLE domain name was important, they declared: “Having a short and meaningful domain name like Find.Bible has helped people to more easily remember our web address. In the past when we shared a web address, people often didn’t remember whether the domain name had a .COM or .ORG (or something else) on the end. Now we can say that the web address is just Find.Bible and there’s no extra ending to add. People are getting it because it just makes sense!”
Benefits of a New Domain Extension
You might ask, then, why change? Here are some of the benefits to this new domain: it saves people time from typing the previously excessively long domain name (cf. typing fewer characters can save many hours of time), it’s friendlier to mobile users, and it adds that extra “grab attention” factor because it stands out by not being yet another dot-com website. Plus, it’s much easier to find a shorter domain name that’s available.
There you have it. 3 successful upgrades to better domain names by Christian ministry organizations. And there are many more.
With this new internet namespace expansion, the opportunity is now available for your organization to get the very best domain name that can be self-explanatory for what it is that you’re offering. Domain names that makes plain sense and clearly tells people what to expect at that web address reduces any remaining friction that keeps people from going to your website.
Bible websites make the Word of God widely available to all people around the world. The most valuable resource for all humanity has become that much more accessible on the internet!
But what are the top Bible websites on the Internet? Does a top list refer to its popularity, its quality, or something else? Putting together a list of the top Bible websites is somewhat subjective, selecting a set of criteria to evaluate features, functions, designs, and usability. And that can stir up some contention and competition, and we don’t want that.
Another way to compile a websites list is based on the most traffic*. Before the list is revealed, let’s see if you know the logos of the 20 popular Bible websites: (answers will be listed below, row by row from left to right)
And for the reveal… the 20 most popular Bible websites with a very brief description:
biblegateway.com – providing the Bible online for over 20 years, currently with over 70 languages and 180 versions (a division of The Zondervan Corporation)
biblehub.com – provides quick access to many Bible versions and multiple languages, topical studies, interlinears, sermons, commentaries (a production of the Online Parallel Bible Project)
biblestudytools.com – with multiple Bible versions in English and a large resource library for in-depth Bible study (Salem Web Network)
blueletterbible.org – with multiple versions of the Bible, linked with Bible-centered study aids and courses (a ministry of Sowing Circle)
biblia.com – “Bible Study Online” (a service of Faithlife / Logos Bible Software)
youversion.com – “a simple, ad-free Bible that brings God’s Word into your daily life,” links to Bible.com
esvbible.org – English Standard Version of the Bible by Crossway—an “essentially literal” translation of the Bible in contemporary English
Bible.oremus.org – the Bible and prayer resources used in the Church of England and in the wider Anglican Communion and elsewhere
EasyEnglish .Bible – EasyEnglish is clear and simple English (vocabulary with a smaller word count), developed by MissionAssist
ebible.com – “eBible aims to capture all the answers, to all the questions, about all the verses in the Bible.”
bible.is – “Bringing the Bible to everyone in the world in their heart language, in text and audio, free of charge”, a ministry of Faith Comes By Hearing
O-bible.com – the Bible in English and Chinese (GB and Big5)
biblez.com – Bible website with “Zip Search With AutoComplete,” part of the BibleHub.com suite
mybible.com – nice visually-designed online Bible and Bible verses with Facebook covers and images for social sharing
With the Internet being world wide and many other languages besides English, surely there are many more websites online making the Bible freely available. Two of the newest Bible websites that are worth mentioning—mystudybible.com and lumina.bible.orgwill be gaining more visitors and users as the good news spreads. Plus, there are certainly many other Bible websites with Bible software, apps, content, study materials, videos, media, and so on; though the list here is primarily focused on just the Bible, plain and simple.
What Bible websites can you envision?
These are exciting times for the Internet around the world as the new developments related to .BIBLE domain names are launching to create the future of the internet. New technological developments open the door for creativity, innovation, and new possibilities. How are you inspired by the Creator who has created humans in His image to be creative like He is creative? For example, here’s a wild idea. With personal technologies becoming a closer part of our digital lifestyles pretty much all the time, what could a smart website named something like RealTime.Bible do for people? Could personalization and customization be connected to timely relevance for just the right Bible verse at the right time? God can do far more than we can imagine!
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* website traffic research based on publicly-available data from sites like Similarweb.com, Compete.com, Alexa.com
Have you noticed how some people in the Bible had their names changed? Often the biblical text will explain why their names changed. Here’s a couple of examples, with emphasis added to show the reason for the new name:
In Genesis 17:1-6, Abram was renamed Abraham:
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the Almighty God. Obey me and always do what is right.”… God said, “I make this covenant with you: I promise that you will be the ancestor of many nations. Your name will no longer be Abram, but Abraham, because I am making you the ancestor of many nations.”
In Genesis 32:28, Jacob was renamed Israel:
The man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob. You have struggled with God and with men, and you have won; so your name will be Israel.”
Genesis 25:24-26—The time came for her to give birth, and she had twin sons. The first one was reddish, and his skin was like a hairy robe, so he was named Esau. The second one was born holding on tightly to the heelof Esau, so he was named Jacob.
Matthew 1:21—She will have a son, and you will name him Jesus—because he will save his people from their sins.”
Matthew 1:23—“A virgin will become pregnant and have a son, and he will be called Immanuel” (which means, “God is with us”).
Wes Woodell summarized the important meaning of names in his blog post, The Significance of Names in the Bible, He explained how names are significant in the Bible, and how they serve a variety of functions. This list is a recap of his devotional:
6 Reasons Why Names are Important in the Bible
A biblical name could record some aspects of a person’s birth.
Biblical names sometimes expressed the parents’ reaction to the birth of their child.
Biblical names were sometimes used to secure the solidarity of family ties.
Biblical names could be used to communicate God’s message.
Biblical names were also used to establish an affiliation with God.
Biblical names are given to establish authority over another, or to indicate a new beginning or new direction in a person’s life.
What name will you use?
As you can see, names are very important in the Bible. Now that .BIBLE domain names are available on the Internet, these new web addresses can be very important and meaningful too.
From this short Bible study above, we see how people who already had names were given new names. This means that if your website already has a domain name, you might be inspired to take on a new domain name that emphasizes its intent to communicate God’s message in the Bible, quickly identify with the Bible, or to indicate a stronger focus in your website’s ministry.
If you have a brand new digital ministry idea that is Blbie-related, it can be launched with a new .BIBLE domain name to show it’s meaning, purpose, and destiny, just like how a biblical name was given to a newborn baby. For example, you can help people with how to name a newborn child using names in the Bible. You could easily launch a website with a .BIBLE domain name like BabyNames.Bible that’d perfect for that!
